EPCE 2013-07-21 Volume 2

Driving and Transportation Safety

Maintaining high levels of road traffic safety is always important and when
the road is in a tunnel, and especially in a long tunnel, maintaining the
highest possible level of safety is paramount. In Sweden, the Stockholm bypass
tunnel has been scheduled to commence construction in 2013. The tunnel will be
approximately 18 km in length. The length of the tunnel is expected to affect
the drivers' experiences pertaining drowsiness, arousal, distraction and
feelings of safety and security. The study included 24 participants, 12 men and
12 women, aged 30-45. All of the participants drove two versions of the tunnel,
one version with a decoration design in terms of string lighting in the ceiling
of the tunnel and one version of the tunnel without any decoration design. Eye
tracking behaviour was measured during the study. CR10 ratings of four
subjective dimensions (distraction, visually cluttered, visually
stimulating/arousal and safety and well-being) during the drive were also
measured. The results revealed that 58 per cent of the participants preferred
the tunnel with the strings of light in the ceiling and 29 per cent preferred
the tunnel without the ceiling lighting. 13 per cent prefer neither one design
more than the other. The participants perceived feelings of their driving
through the tunnel suggested that the tunnel with the ceiling light design was
experienced as being more "visually cluttered" than the tunnel without the
light strings but at the same time it was also experienced as more
"arousing/stimulating". Mean glance duration times suggested that although
there was a significant main effect of the tunnel with the string lighting and
in specific areas of the tunnel, the drivers were looking at the ceiling
lighting but using short glances (445.3 ms with lighting and 234.3 ms without
lighting). The negative safety implications of the elaborate interior lighting
features would appear to be minimal in terms of distraction and irritation
whereas the safety benefits in this particularly long road tunnel, in terms of
subjective feelings of visual stimulation is encouraging. Based on the
participants' experiences of the interior design concept of the 18 km long
tunnel, having stimulating lighting features in different locations alone the
length of the tunnel is recommended.

Two experiments with 24 participants each evaluated comprehension of
vibrotactile route guidance instructions via a tactile seat in a driving
simulator. Vibrotactile patterns were presented from an array of 8 tactors
arranged in two rows of 4 tactors located in the seat pan. A faster pulse rate
and a slower pulse rate as well as four distinct locations on the tactile seat
(Front-Left, Front-Right, Back-Left, Back-Right) created 8 different
combinations of stimuli. Across all participants, the most consistent
interpretation was that the faster pulse rate played from the back two tactors
was perceived as an instruction to make the next most immediate turn while a
slow pulse rate from the front two tactors was interpreted as a cue directing
the user to the direction of the next eventual turn. Results have direct
implications for design of effective vibrotactile and multimodal route guidance
systems.

The Safe System Approach -- A Road Safety Strategy Based on Human Factors
Principles

In most safety critical domains, safety has been improved through the
application of contemporary human error models and management methods. But the
common strategic approach to improve road safety has so far mainly been built
on the view that individual road-users utterly are responsible when crashes
occur and countermeasures have consequently been aimed at changing the
behaviour of the road-user. This approach is however slowly shifting and there
is a growing understanding that the strategies must be based on human factors
principles. In this paper the human factors principles of the Safe System
approach are outlined and important implications for the design and regulation
of the road transport system will be presented. It is concluded that the Safe
System approach share vital foundations with the human factors concept. But it
is argued that the Safe System approach takes the human factors approach
further by regarding the capability of the human body to withstand external
influences with a potential to induce bodily harm.

Safe system strategies govern the approaches to road safety in many
countries. This is the case for both road and rail safety in Australia. In this
paper we take a complex segment of the road and rail system, rail level
crossings, to demonstrate why the current approaches to safety in this area
need to change. We argue that approaches that are more consistent with real
systems thinking are required to generate the new interventions needed to
reduce road trauma in this setting. In recognizing the need for new approaches
the Victorian road and rail sponsors have partnered with Australian and UK
Universities in an exciting four year initiative designed to change the
paradigm in RLX safety. In this paper we outline the rationale for this change
and describe the four phase analytical approach being used. It is hoped that
this approach will help to actualise safe system strategies in ways that are
more consistent with systems thinking and that significantly improve safety.

A study was conducted on a dynamic driving simulator aiming to examine
whether the effect of mental effort due to an auditory detection task on
accident risk is additive to the effect of higher speed. Two levels of the
driving task were employed, a low-demanding and a high-demanding one. Twenty
drivers were asked to drive two rounds on a rural road with normal traffic,
with unexpected traffic events along the second round. In half of the cases an
auditory detection task had to be performed in parallel. The analysis of
results showed that higher speed or higher mental effort due to the secondary
task lead to more accidents and the effects should be considered as additive.
These effects should not be considered as the mere effect of attentional
resource availability but as depending on the drivers' skill to manage their
attentional control.

Cognitive work analysis (CWA), a systems-based analysis framework, is
intended to inform system design. However, there is little guidance available
about how to use the framework in design. This paper identifies desirable
methodological attributes for a new design approach for CWA and describes a
process of refining these to a core set based on the opinions of CWA
practitioners. The new design approach, the CWA Design Tool (CWA-DT), is
outlined in terms of how it aligns with these core attributes. Finally,
implications of application of the CWA-DT for road safety design will be
identified and discussed.

Collisions between distinct road users (e.g. drivers and motorcyclists) make
a substantial contribution to the road trauma burden. Although evidence
suggests distinct road users interpret the same road situations differently, it
is not clear how road users' situation awareness differs, nor is it clear which
differences might lead to conflicts. This article presents the findings from an
on-road study which examined driver, cyclist, motorcyclist and pedestrian
situation awareness at intersections. The findings suggest that situation
awareness at intersection is markedly different across the four road user
groups studied, and that some of these differences may create conflicts between
the different road users. The findings also suggest that the causes of the
differences identified relate to road design and road user experience. In
closing, the key role of road design and training in supporting safe
interactions between distinct road users is discussed.

Cognitive Issues in Aviation

How Can a Future Safety Net Successfully Detect Conflicting ATC Clearances
-- Yet Remain Inconspicuous to the Tower Runway Controller? First Results from
a SESAR Exercise at Hamburg Airport

To increase runway safety a new safety net for Tower Runway Controllers was
developed which detects if controllers give a clearance to an aircraft or
vehicle contradictory to another clearance already given to another mobile. In
a shadow mode validation exercise with eleven controllers at the operational
environment of the airport Hamburg (Germany) operational feasibility was tested
in order to clarify if operational requirements in terms of usability are
fulfilled. At the same time operational improvements regarding safety were
studied e.g. if the new safety net detects all conflicts and if nuisance alerts
are suppressed.

This study applied Human Factors Intervention Matrix (HFIX) framework
described by Wiegmann and Shappell. METHOD: The data set comprised of 31
incident investigation reports taken place between 2009 and 2011 and included
182 unique safety recommendations to reduce human errors. The results indicated
that major recommendations were directed at organizational/ administrative and
human/ crew approaches and the most effective interventions concentrated on
decision errors and violations. This study has demonstrated that the HFIX
framework can be applied to improve human errors by five different approaches.
It also has suggested that decision error and violations are critical issues of
flight safety and these can be improved by training and organizational
administration.

current study investigates 83 civil aviation and military services
helicopter accidents in Taiwan between 1970 and 2010. The probable and latent
causes of those accidents are clearly defined, and statistically analyzed by
error related paths and Human Factors Analysis and Classification System
(HFACS). Results indicate that categories of the higher level have better
predicted power (between 4.25% and 24.9%) than categories of the lower levels
(with odd ratios between 0.19 and 8.67). Fallible decisions in upper command
levels directly affect supervisory practices which create pre-conditions for
unsafe acts, impair performance of pilots, and lead to unexpected accidents. By
identifying the higher level human errors leading to low level helicopter
mishaps, HFACS is useful a tool for accident investigations and accident
prevention strategies. Current study provides a practical suggestion to top
managers for a better helicopter operational safety environment.

Here, a descriptive study is reported that addresses the relationship
between flight control performance and instrument scanning behavior. This work
was performed in a fixed-based flight simulator. It targets the ability of
untrained novices to pilot a lightweight rotorcraft in a flight scenario that
consisted of fundamental mission task elements such as speed and altitude
changes. The results indicate that better control performance occurs when gaze
is more selective for and focused on key instruments. Ideal instrument scanning
behavior is proposed and its relevance for training instructions and visual
instrument design is discussed.

Discriminability of Flight Maneuvers and Risk of False Decisions Derived
from Dual Choice Decision Errors in a Videopanorama-Based Remote Tower Work
Position

Future remote control of small low traffic airports (Remote Tower Operation,
RTO) will rely on the replacement of the conventional control tower
out-of-windows view by a panoramic digital reconstruction with high resolution
and pan-tilt zoom (PTZ) video cameras as basic sensor system. This provides the
required visual cues for aerodrome traffic control without a local control
tower. Here we show that with a 2 arcmin-per-pixel resolution panorama system
even with the use of a manually controlled (analog) PTZ camera (with PAL
TV-resolution and selectable zoom factor setting) experiments under operational
conditions indicate a significant increase of decision errors under RTO as
compared to the conventional out-of-windows view. We quantify the corresponding
discrimination difference by means of detection theory (discriminability,
decision criteria) and Bayes inference (risk of false decisions) using the
response errors of tower controllers with regard to dual choice decision tasks.
The results extend the performance and subjective data analysis of safety
related maneuvers in 11.

This article describes an automation concept, which enables the pilot of a
single-seat fighter aircraft to manage more than one unmanned combat aerial
vehicle (UCAV). The presented concept bases on the theory of cognitive and
cooperative automation and suggests that unmanned aircraft are equipped with
on-board artificial cognitive units (ACUs). By this, unmanned platforms are
enabled to exhibit cooperative capabilities and rational behavior in the
context of the mission. To accomplish efficient manned-unmanned cooperation the
concept additionally proposes to support the pilot with an assistant system
module for team coordination tasks and to provide a self-explanation capability
to the unmanned aircraft. This concept has been realized as laboratory
prototype and already been tested with operational personnel in our
human-in-the-loop full scenario simulation environment. For the further
evaluation of the concept an experimental design has been worked out.

Human Factors is no longer simply concerned with the design of equipment and
work stations. This old view is being superseded by a systems-based approach
which examines all aspects of the working environment and makes little or no
attempt to separate the human, machine and task environment. This
socio-technical systems approach complements the latest thinking from cognitive
science which regards the human use of technological artifacts as a joint
cognitive system. People work in teams, who all have a slightly different
perspective of the system; the tools that they use serve as 'cognitive
amplifiers' to enhance human abilities. This brief overview begins by examining
the operation of commercial aircraft as a joint cognitive system and examines
the role of CRM in promoting distributed cognition on the flight deck.

The purpose of this study is intended to address the current state of
comprehensibility of airline safety briefing cards by adopting the eye-tracking
experimental method and comprehension test to solve the relationship between
comprehensibility and fixations of airline safety briefing cards. The Land
Evacuation Section of a safety card was selected to measure respondents' eye
movements together with a survey to test the comprehension of
pictorials/pictograms. 51 subjects participated with this study. The results
indicate that the universal situation that safety information is not well
transferred to passengers and potential passengers. The result of study also
showe that the pictograms related to "how to operate emergency door" took the
longest fixation time and fixation counts, yet with the highest comprehension
score. Meanwhile, other pictorials also showed the positive correlation between
their comprehensibility and fixation time and fixation counts. The implications
from these results were discussed. It is hoped that the present work will
generate interest in the designer and user for providing guidance in the
development of cabin safety briefing card.

The human factor is becoming a main topic in modeling and simulation,
especially in airline safety as more aviation accidents are classified as pilot
(human) errors. Traditional modeling schemes treat pilots and aircraft
individually, assuming the other as given. However, to define a system-level
architecture for the safety analysis, it is advantageous to expand the system
boundary to include both pilots and aircraft as a coupled entity. In this
paper, we propose a framework for pilot-aircraft system modeling scheme from a
complex systems point of view. Key pilot factors are identified and quantified,
and complex relationships and interaction among these factors are incorporated
into usually well-modeled aircraft system. We also introduce a fast-time
simulation model of man-aircraft-environment complex system with the human
strategy model as its core to generate large sample sizes of flight data for
this modeling purpose. The given results not only provide a proactive approach
to the research of flying safety, it can also be applied to other complex
dynamic systems.

The goal of this research is to reveal the influence of a newly developed
concept of guanxi gradient on crew resource management and the corresponding
values in a Chinese cockpit. Guanxi gradient is a cultural variable describing
the decay of attitude considering different degree of interpersonal intimacy. A
questionnaire measuring the attitude change is designed in the study. The
questionnaire includes three parts which are basic perception, situational
response and open questions. The objective of these questions is to find out
how the operations of CRM were affected by the different degree of intimacy.
Also, the questionnaire was designed to expose the corresponding underlying
Chinese value system. It is found that harmony is the top value in cases
without safety concerns.

Keywords: crew resources management; guanxi gradient; value system

Pilot Operating Characteristics Analysis of Long Landing Based on Flight QAR
Data

Long landing events make up the largest percentage of all exceedance
incidents and multiply the risk of runway excursions in landing phase. For the
aim of exploring operating factors causing long landing, this study examined
the pilot operating characteristics of long landing events by the methods of
variance analysis, regression modeling and flare operation analysis based on
flight QAR data. Finally it concluded that flare is the most critical operation
in landing, which determining the touchdown distance by two key factors of
flare time and flare height. Both of the control column and throttle operation
plays an important role in the flare process. Pilots' faster pulling up columns
and softer throttle closing is probably helpful for a successful flare. In
addition, pilots need to control the aircraft to an appropriate groundspeed and
descent rate before descending to the flare initial point. The conclusions are
expected to be applied into practice to prevent the happening of long landing
events.

Under high pressure of flight mission and dynamic aircraft maneuvers in the
tactic missions, pilot faces additional difficulties and increased mental
workload. Workload could increase the error of flight operation, decrease
efficiency of pilot's decision-making. Experts had significantly shorter
dwells, more total fixations, more aim point and airspeed fixations and fewer
altimeter fixations than novices, experts were also found to have better
defined eye-scanning patterns. This research applies the eye-tracking
technology for analyzing visual attention, emWave-2 for measuring physiological
coherence, and NSAS-TLX for investigating subjective cognitive efforts. The
participants of this research consisted of 41 fighter pilots. The present study
is applying new technology to understand the pilots' workload and visual
attention in the cockpit for conducting a simulated air-to-air tactic
operation. There is a raising need for further research regarding mental
workload and stress management program for real-time flight operations.

Today, Fatigue is one of the hottest issues discussed in civil aviation of
the world. However, because the numbers of the contributing factors and the
diversity of symptoms, it makes the fatigue monitoring and the fatigue
management as a problem. Based on the FRMS framework of Canada, this article
will focus on the fatigue monitoring technologies of China, they are the
methods on the assessment of work schedule, fatigue symptoms and the actual
sleep time. These fatigue risk control measures and tools are designed for the
pilots at present, and then it will be gradually developed for ATC and
maintenance personnel.

Glare is a key factor influencing the visual performance in light conditions
of civil airplane flight deck, but it is difficult to directly evaluate the
complex glare sources in flight deck, such as non-uniform glare, irregular
shape glare and indirect glare using current glare equations. In this paper, a
method based on digital camera was proposed to evaluate glare is proposed to
evaluate the glare from flight deck. Digital camera's imaging luminance
measurement is based on High Dynamic Range (HDR) image processing. The
computational procedures to calculate source luminance, background luminance,
position index and solid angle of source, to detect the glare sources were
developed in Matlab. And then, the desired glare index can be computed.
Finally, Daylight Glare Probability (DGP) equation was utilized as an example
to evaluate the glare for flight deck in daytime. The results indicate that the
proposed method can compute glare index automatically and quickly.

The experiments described here explored how pilots want available maneuver
authority information transmitted and how this information affects pilots
before and after an aircraft failure. The aircraft dynamic variables relative
to flight performance were narrowed to energy management variables. A survey
was conducted to determine what these variables should be. Survey results
indicated that bank angle, vertical velocity, and airspeed were the preferred
variables. Based on this, two displays were designed to inform the pilot of
available maneuver envelope expressed as bank angle, vertical velocity, and
airspeed. These displays were used in an experiment involving control surface
failures. Results indicate the displayed limitations in bank angle, vertical
velocity, and airspeed were helpful to the pilots during aircraft surface
failures. However, the additional information did lead to a slight increase in
workload, a small decrease in perceived aircraft flying qualities, and no
effect on aircraft situation awareness.

Human factors have an important impact on aviation safety. The evaluation of
pilot's workload is one of the most noteworthy human factors issues. After a
brief overview of workload measurement techniques, a layered multi-dimensional
description of workload is proposed, and the method is based on multiple
objective measures. Heart rate, respiration, eye movements, control inputs and
flight data are recorded in a simulated flight. The sensitivity and
diagnosticity of several psychophysiological measurements are analyzed.
Finally, a multi-dimensional pattern is constructed using the proposed method.
The pattern can give a detailed description of pilot's workload throughout the
flight.

A new forecast model of attention allocation was built on four trade-off
factors, including information priority, occurring probability, salient and
effort, which involved both channels of information processing. To validate
this model, sixteen participants from Beijing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics were recruited to perform an instrument monitoring task under
different conditions. Participants were required to concentrate on monitoring
the flight indicators presented on a simulation interface of head-up display
and respond to abnormal information (anyone of the indicators went out of the
normal range) by pressing the corresponding buttons on the keyboard. Fixation
distribution was recorded as evaluation index of attention allocation using
Smart Eye Pro 4.5 eye-movement tracking device. Simultaneously, reaction time
and correct rate of key-press response were recorded by computer automatically
as evaluation indices of behavior performance. The regression analysis revealed
good agreement between fixation distribution and theoretical results.

This research proposed a coherent assessment method for evaluating visual
ergonomics in simulated flight deck via evaluating psychological indices and
performance during a series of experiments. A simulated flight deck environment
was established according to the dimensions of a real commercial aircraft
cockpit with back projection, and then a balanced sequence of pseudo random
variates was generated with replicated Latin square design. After the
experiment of 18 interior color levels and 2 luminance levels, a complex
statistical analysis was conducted to examine the significance as well as
correlations within different factors. The fluctuation of luminance can affects
the results slightly, while the change of the interior color, both hue and
saturation-intensity levels, can influence subjects' visual ergonomics
significantly and interactively. This coherent assessment indicates that light
blue was the best choice, whereas, vivid yellow was the last among the 18
colors.

"Human Error" is one of the major reasons of aircraft accident and incident.
In order to reduce the loss by "Human Error", the "human error" action sequence
must be detected and provide warning to pilot or intelligent action when pilot
violates the operation procedures or any actions that may cause potential
accident or incident. To identify and manage the "Human Error" is becoming more
and more important.
The response of unit varies with human's behavior. If the correct operation
behavior can be digital described, then human's operation behavior will be
partly quantized. Pilots guide the airplane mainly by operations manual,
excluding facility failure, there exist operations regularity, that is
time-ordered action sequence. Operating steps and therbligs can be intuitive
quantitative by coding operations process. Fully considering behavioral
characteristics of the pilot group, to optimize time sequence and action
sequence parameters will make the operation behavior code be more accurate. The
study in operation behavior coding and analysis will play an important role in
effectively reducing the probability of flight accidents caused by human
factors.
This paper designed and developed a set of effective behavior coding method
on the basis of computer compilation principle, starting from unit operation
behavior and description of abstraction, using mathematical method to analyze
the connections between operation tasks.

The objective of this review is to extract design implications from
multiyear US Army sponsored research investigating humans and autonomy. The
programs covered diverse research paradigms: (a) effects of autonomy related to
pedestrian safety during urban robotic missions, (b) supervision of multiple
semi-autonomous robots assisted by an intelligent agent, (c) field
investigations of advanced interfaces for hands-free and heads-up supervision
of robots for dismounted missions and also investigations of telepresence, (d)
effects of haptic control and stereovision for exploiting improvised explosive
devices. Thirteen general design guidelines related to mixed initiative
systems, pedestrian safety, telepresence, voice control and stereovision/haptic
control are discussed.

Ground vehicles are increasingly designed to incorporate autonomous control
for better performance, control and efficiency. Such control is particularly
critical for military logistics vehicles where drivers are carrying sensitive
loads through potentially threatening routes. It is imperative therefore to
evaluate what role does autonomy play to help safety, and whether drivers trust
autonomous control. In this paper we investigate the use of semi-autonomous
vehicles used for military logistics and carry out human factors analysis to
reflect on trust and safety issues that emerge from the driving of such
vehicles.

Threat evaluation (TE) is concerned with determining the intent, capability
and opportunity of detected targets. To their aid, military operators use
support systems that analyse incoming data and make inferences based on the
active evaluation framework. Several interface and interaction guidelines have
been proposed for the implementation of TE systems; however there is a lack of
research regarding how to make these systems transparent to their operators.
This paper presents the results from interviews conducted with TE operators
focusing on the need for and possibilities of improving the transparency of TE
systems through the visualization of uncertainty and the presentation of the
system rationale.

Controlling a short-range missile with in-flight reconfiguration
capabilities places high demands on the design of the missile operators'
control station and automated functions. To enable the missile operator to
react fast, reliable and in a responsible manner to unforeseen events, e.g.
high risk for collateral damage, an automated decision support system is
investigated in this article. A common approach to reduce the high time demands
of the operator is to transfer more functions from the human to the machine.
Such emerging high levels of automation introduce ethical problems as well as
new issues in human-automation-interaction to be resolved. At the Institute of
Flight Systems we follow a well-established approach of human-automation
cogency to assist human operators while keeping them fully involved in decision
processes, i.e. "dual-mode cognitive automation, DMCA". This article presents
first steps towards the application to a high-tempo mission with minimal
information on the task and the tactical environment being available to the
automated system.
We present an approach to relieve the human from the time critical task to
enter suchlike information into the system, thereby freeing cognitive resources
for mission critical decisions. At the same time the assistant system observes
the actions of the missile operator, infers his/her most likely intents, and
adapts support functions accordingly. Comparing the human's control actions
with intention related task models, the assistant system shall identify errors
and suggest alternative actions or possible solutions. The operator remains in
full control of all functions and decides whether to accept or decline the
assistant systems advises. This article provides an overview over the main
conceptual ideas and the current status of prototype implementation.

A "delegation approach" to human interaction with automation should strive
to achieve all of the flexibility that a human supervisor has in instructing,
managing, redirecting and overriding well-trained human subordinates. But in
the absence of human-like, natural-language understanding "androids", what
would such interaction look like? This multi-year design and evaluation project
explores such interaction concepts for pilot control of multiple remotely
piloted systems. This paper details the underlying philosophy of delegation and
presents many design innovations developed to date.

Studies indicate that "cloud" based concepts will provide benefits by
maximising the availability of capability, reducing redundancy and permitting
efficiencies in operation and deployment of effect. To deploy the cloud will
require many problems to be solved. This paper examines automation applied to
the cloud and builds on substantial work looking at command abstraction of
users and consumers interacting with systems. The work retains the absolute
authority of the human supervisor. Data is presented of a recent trial which
immersed serving military personnel, exercising both manned and unmanned
systems within a synthetic environment, whilst divorcing operators from
platform ownership and concentrating instead on task ownership (thus linking
person to purpose). Baseline systems were compared with systems possessing
higher degrees of automation and tool functionality. The results are discussed
and the key conclusions show clear benefits to operating in the person to
purpose manner.

This paper introduces the concept of the Human Domain within military
operations and considers how it has evolved from Cultural Geography into more
specific sub-components of Human Geography and Human Terrain. At a high level,
Human Geography and Human Terrain map across to strategic and tactical
decision-making respectively. However, there is a confusing array of
terminology and definitions surrounding these factors. Given this complexity,
what might have originally been considered a Human Domain continuum from a
strategic level down to a tactical level may be better represented as
overlapping constructs on a spectrum of understanding, each with their own
approaches to data capture and analysis.

Keywords: Human Domain; Data Models; Visualisation; Human Factors

Cognitive Issues in Health and Well-Being

Technologies are revolutionizing the way health care is managed and
delivered, especially in the areas of telemedicine and home care. Many at-home
e-Health products are being developed and brought to market, but one of the
factors that prevent widespread adoption is the need for customized solutions
that result in lack of economies of scale. In this paper, we describe our
Web-ENabled Devices and Instruments (WENDI) platform that addresses this
challenge, utilizing technologies that promote low-cost and rapid development
of web-based applications.

Large groups in society lack the necessary skills to be sufficiently
self-reliant and are in need of personal assistance. These groups could be
supported by information and information technology (ICT), but only if this
technology is designed to fit their (cognitive) abilities. Inclusive design
theory and methods have already been developed in research contexts, but there
is still a gap between theory and practice. There is a need for a practical
aid, that helps to create awareness of inclusive design among ICT developers,
and offers easy-to-use information and tools to actually apply the methods for
diverse target groups. This paper describes the first steps taken towards an
inclusive design toolbox for developing ICT applications that offer cognitive
support for self-reliance. Dutch ICT companies were interviewed and
participated in a co-design workshop, leading to a number of initial needs,
user requirements, and an on-line community, that form input for further
development of the toolbox.

Recent evidence supports the positive effects of external intervention
during specific sleep stages (e.g. enhanced memory consolidation and depression
relief). To enable timely intervention, online automated sleep staging is
required and preferably with short latency. In this paper, we propose an
approach to achieve this based on the analysis of spectral features of a single
electroencephalogram (EEG) channel and the use of Gaussian Mixture Models. We
compare among several choices for the EEG signal location, the type of spectral
features, and the duration of the signal segment (epoch) that is required to
automatically identify the sleep stage. The performance metric used for
comparison purposes is the kappa statistic, which measures the agreement
between the automatic and manual sleep staging. The performance is higher when
central EEG locations (C3, C4), longer epochs, and the power in five frequency
bands are used. However, good results (kappa=0.6) can also be obtained for an
epoch duration of 12 seconds.

Stroke frequently causes apraxia, particularly if it affects the
left-hemisphere. A major symptom of apraxia is the presence of deficits during
the execution and organization of activities of daily living (ADL). These
deficits may substantially limit the capacity of stroke patients to live
independently in their home environment. Traditional rehabilitative techniques
to improve ADL function revolve around physical and occupational therapy. This
approach is labor intensive and constraints therapy to clinical environments.
The CogWatch system provides an supplementary means of rehabilitation that is
based on instrumented objects and ambient devices that are part of patients'
everyday environment and can be used to monitor behavior and progress as well
as re-train them to carry out ADL through persistent multimodal feedback.

We present an approach using room lighting for strengthening individual
daily structure or changing structure of daily routines if required. This new
healing environment concept includes a monitoring system based on standard
passive infrared presence sensors as well as a zonal and ambient room lighting
system using direct and indirect lighting with variable light intensities and
light colors.

The importance of usability for older adults in therapeutic games has not
been well explored. Aspects of game-related usability that go beyond typical
considerations are a need for challenge, complexity, adoption by novices,
motivation for extensive use, and enjoyment. Benefits to considering usability
as it pertains to this special population may have long-term benefits for
personal independence, maintenance of skills, and rehabilitation from injury.
We outline areas we deem critical as a first step to utilizing what we know of
older adult use of games for training purposes to facilitate a conversation
between designers and researchers for creating and improving games for older
players.

Identifying user-friendly use cases for technologies under development is
often a difficult endeavor, especially when designing healing environments for
the elderly, due to the absence of comparable technologies and the little
technology experience in the target group. The principles of user centered
design (UCD) have been successfully applied with professionals and lead users,
but it is much more difficult for the development of healing environments like
AAL-systems (ambient assisted living systems). This article describes the
user-centered development of use cases for an innovative lighting system
("Guiding-Light") aimed at increasing the independence and well-being of senior
adults.

A chair with armrests is an important object required by aged people for
sitting, when their physical strength decline gradually. Users' emotions can be
evoked by touching material of the armrest. This study attempts to explore aged
people's emotional responses as evoked by interaction with materials on
armrests. An experiment was conducted to explore emotional responses evoked by
touching six different materials of a armrest between aged people and young
adults. The results indicate that a chair's armrests made from fabric can
enhance users' pleasure senses better, as compared with the other five
materials. The result also showed that aged people were willing to give a
higher mean score on pleasure than young adults were.